Trump has repeatedly sought to delay his trial in the E. Jean Carroll case where she accuses him of rape and defamation. The judge has grown weary of denying these motions for the trial set to begin on April 25th, a week from today. The weariness was evident in the a decision from the judge yesterday denying yet another Trump request to delay the trial. The decision is truly a joy to read.
Trump sought to delay the trial for a month as a “cooling off period” after his indictment in the courthouse next door. Trump claimed the extensive publicity surrounding his indictment created a media circus so that any potential jury in his case with Carroll would have fresh in their minds his criminal charges.
The judge’s first reason for denying Trump’s request is one I noted right away. In a month, there’s likely to be another criminal indictment, and a month later yet another. If criminal indictments are a basis to delay Carroll’s trial it may not happen till next year.
As the judge politely put it:
“postponements in circumstances such as this are not necessarily unmixed blessings from the standpoint of a defendant who is hoping for the dissipation of what he regards, or says he regards, as negative publicity. Events happen during postponements. Sometimes they can make matters worse . . . Mr. Trump faces a number of criminal and civil investigations and litigation including . . .”
The judge then lists the pending investigations against Trump that could lead to more criminal charges. It’s a lengthy footnote.
Towards the end of the decision the judge points out that much of the publicity surrounding Trump’s indictment was generated by Trump.
“it bears emphasis that at least some portion of the recent media coverage of Mr.Trump’s indictment was of his own doing. There has been no shortage of recent news articles focused on Mr. Trump’s own public statements on his social media platform and in press conferences and interviews he has given about his indictment. It does not sit well for Mr. Trump to promote pretrial publicity and then to claim that coverage that he promoted was prejudicial to him and should be taken into account as supporting a further delay.”
For those hoping Trump’s big mouth would be used against him in court, read it and smile. Further, this is the second time in just this case. As I previously wrote, the same judge applied a treatment for Trump, normally reserved for mafia bosses, in ruling that Trump’s long history of attempting to intimidate courts, witnesses, and even individual jurors justified keeping the names of jurors in this case anonymous.
